


Tattooed Across His Knuckles

by bwyn



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, i mean law is basically a cursed prince in a tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/pseuds/bwyn
Summary: Law blinks down at them in disbelief because, no matter how he turns his head, it’s clear—those are footprints. Human footprints. As in, a real human person was traipsing through the estate, stealing his flowers and… and what? Telling their friends they survived the demon’s den?The print is too large to belong to a child but Law has to wonder anyway. After a long moment’s consideration, Law takes a scrap of fencing and a lump of charcoal and scribbles a warning:Do Not Touch. Simple, straightforward. Baffling, that he has to do this at all.(New, he might think later,refreshing.)***Trapped and forsaken, Law has spent years alone within the dusty manor of his family estate. He thinks he might be okay with it.Until Luffy.





	Tattooed Across His Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> only like half edited but after not having written a word for the past few weeks, I decided this morning just to sit down and finish this thing. so i did. and im relieved!!!

Law remembers clearly the evening his family was locked within their own estate. The first to fall ill had been his mother and younger sister—bedridden within days, a sickly white creeping over their skin in patches. A physician was called for; a gods’ man came with him.

The infliction was contagious. The physician had no cure. The gods’ man declared it the result of impure thoughts—the only answer for the sudden sickness in the duke’s house. Corruption. Greed.

“Your family is guilty of crimes against the gods. It is through their own will that they punish you. Let the goddess of time claim you and purify the estate.”

The cold gazes of the gods’ men outside acted more as a barrier than the gate that clanged shut, trapping everyone within—Law, his family, and everyone in their service.

He was ten at the time.

* * *

It’s another cool morning, dewy and cheerful in a way that Law hates on principle. Arms weighed down by buckets of food waste, he shoves a shoulder against the kitchen door. The bottom grinds against the stone steps. Two more annoyed shoves scrapes it free, utterly trashing the vines that had been making their home there. Law tries to summon the motivation to clear at least some of the overgrown mess, but if he can still open the door then it can wait a little longer.

He takes his burden past the well, to the mound of rich earth collecting just where the interlocking stones meet unruly grass. After opening a little burrow within the pile, Law dumps fuzzy bread and rotten vegetables inside and kicks a layer of earth on top. Really, he’d spoil a lot less if they gave him a bit more meat, and replaced all the bread with potatoes. He’d like that, honestly, but the last time Law attempted to negotiate his groceries, the templars on guard squirted salt water in his face. Even though that was a few years ago, Law really doubts anything has changed their minds in the meantime. After all, he’s well into his twenties and they haven’t shown any signs of freeing him.

The buckets are dropped by the kitchen door as Law passes it, making a beeline for the other side of the mansion. Ancient oaks cast dappled shade here, their shadows deeper now than they will be in an hour’s time, when the sun burns away the morning dew with caustic fervor.

Overgrown grass and unruly weeds turn into hard packed earth beneath Law’s feet. He’d done his best maintaining the border of the garden with low fencing, but years of treading the same path has inevitably done more to keep the wilds at bay than any assortment of twig and twine.

Law pauses at the little gap in the neglected fencing that serves as its entrance, exhales, and greets his saviours.

“Good morning,” he murmurs first to the overwhelming spread of tiny blue and pink flowers, as persistent as weeds in taking over the rest of the grounds. Not that Law minds.

Next he greets the garlic, with its straight thin stalks and clustered white flowers, then comes feathery fennel, short mint plants with leaves like thumbprints, fuzzy licorice and bright pink echinacea, bold red rose hips and clusters of lavender.

When he comes to the feverfew, he pauses, fingertips outstretched to the round white petals. A cluster of them are missing, enough that there’s a noticeable gap within the group. Upon closer inspection, Law sees the broken stalks, torn as though yanked without any regard for their wellbeing and Law’s.

“What in all hells,” says Law at the gap. As far as he knows, there aren’t any deer or other grass-chewers within the grounds, which is surrounded on all sides by the city past its walls. He crouches to check the collection of crushed egg shells and peppers used to keep away the smaller creatures, regardless of leg number, but they’re undisturbed. “Weird.”

Pushing the anomaly to the back of his mind, Law finishes his collecting and returns to the manor. The kitchen is one place he’s put effort into maintaining, removing ash from the hearth and scrubbing the build up of food stuffs from the cast iron; the halls beyond, however, are grey with dust, bare only where the manor’s sole occupant touches a windowsill or brushes a sleeve against the wall.

Perhaps one day he’ll clear out the decade old grime, just like one day he’ll beat back the ivy trying to reclaim the building.

Law takes his plant material to his study at the top of the foyer stairs. It’s a long room, primarily a library with ceiling-high stacks. The dust is thick here too, but in erratic clumps in forgotten corners and the unread novels occupying unreachable shelves. Everything else is clear solely by regular use, including the heavy desk at the room’s center.

The plants Law gathered go into a tray, scoured spotless just like the desk. He reaches for a book, flips it to a page in the thousands, and nods to himself before organizing an array of glassware and instruments in front of him.

Research and study is interrupted only when Law’s stomach is louder than his brain. The walk to the kitchen is treated as exercise and a break in one, the meal preparation as stretches for his hands. For a brief moment, he listens to the birdsong outside. _Sparrow_ , he thinks, though he does not know which one.

He eats, returns to the study with its heavy curtains drawn and boundless candles and lamps lit, and continues his work.

* * *

“No, really, what’s going on,” Law says to the golden yarrow which is missing an entire head but for one single flower. Law is pretty certain _leaving_ the one would take much more effort than just yanking the entire stalk out of the ground.

Law scrutinizes the rest of the garden before making a plan. The freshly overturned dirt in one of his older compost piles is rich, dark and soft. He collects a bucketful and one at a time creates a border around the garden. It’s a bit of a waste of nutrient rich soil, but if he can identify the tracks left behind then he can look up preventative measures.

Satisfied with his work, Law washes his hands of the soil and returns inside to continue his research.

The following morning yields no tracks, but also no missing flowers, as does the day after. Maybe the uninvited guest moved on?

On the third day, Law first notices the missing marshmallow, and then the prints sunk deep into the impressionable soil. Law blinks down at them in disbelief because, no matter how he turns his head, it’s clear—those are footprints. Human footprints. As in, a real human person was traipsing through the estate, stealing his flowers and… and what? Telling their friends they survived the demon’s den?

The print is too large to belong to a child but Law has to wonder anyway. After a long moment’s consideration, Law takes a scrap of fencing and a lump of charcoal and scribbles a warning: _Do Not Touch_. Simple, straightforward. Baffling, that he has to do this at all.

( _New,_ he might think later, _refreshing_.)

* * *

At the end of the week, Law is kneeling among stalks of horsetail when he hears the humming. The horsetail stems are taller than Law in his current position and therefore hide him from sight, but he knows every creak of the manor, every rustle of the garden, and he _knows_ the sounds of raccoons and possums and squirrels.

This carefree humming is definitely human.

Law sees the intruder, their form blocked by the long green bristles of horsetail, and is frozen because 1) he hasn’t seen another person within the walls of the estate in years, and 2) he hasn’t spoken to anyone—but himself and his plants and sometimes the mice that come out when he cooks—in just as many years.

(He chooses not to count his three words aborted by salt water.)

But then he notices that the intruder has chosen to blatantly ignore the sign and is reaching for a clump of red clover.

Law stands up abruptly; the intruder flinches back at his sudden appearance, but the hand doesn’t drop from the clover. The intruder is a boy, sunkissed skin dark and warmer than Law’s own, with wide brown eyes meeting his stare from under the brim of a ratty straw hat. From the state of his clothes—worn red vest, scuffed and dirty shorts—he can’t be very well off.

And he’s just staring. At Law. Who stares back.

Until the hand frozen mid-reach for the clover thaws and deliberately breaks the stem. Slowly the hand retracts, clover in tow. They don’t break eye contact the entire time.

The intruder proceeds to quirk his eyebrows up a fraction before turning and strolling away, and a flabbergasted Law says absolutely nothing.

* * *

The next day Law is taking the second floor hall to a storage room for extra vials when he sees an anomaly in his periphery. It turns out to be the boy eyeing the flowers again, visible from the windows. Law pushes open the window, ignoring the sickly grind of the hinges and the plume of dust that frees itself from the sill.

The boy is already looking up at Law, who leans out the window and snaps, “What do you think you’re doing?”

A tilt of his head sends the boy’s hat flopping off his head to hang around his neck on a string. His black hair is an atrocious mess. From the look on his face, he isn’t sure how to respond—or maybe he doesn’t understand at a base level what Law is saying.

“Those are _my_ plants you’re wrecking,” says Law, channeling as much of his irritation into his voice as possible, but even to his own ears it’s deadpan.

After another long moment, the boy finally says, “I’m not wrecking them, though.”

“Wha—yeah, you are!”

“Am not.”

“Are too!”

“Am not,” repeats the boy with a sudden grin.

“Are too—ugh.” Law’s throat already feels weird from extended use above a mutter. “Stop plucking my flowers, okay?”

“Hm, no guarantees,” says the boy.

Law seriously considers wringing his neck. He switches tactics. “How did you even get in here?”

“Hopped the wall,” the boy replies with a shrug. “It’s a shortcut.”

Law glares down at him in disbelief. “Do you know who lives here?”

He’s expecting _monster_ or _demon_ though maybe not something as detailed as _questionably contagious plague victim_ , but what he gets instead is an innocent tilt of the boy’s head and, “Some old guy, I guess?”

“...No,” says Law, frowning. “There’s a monster.”

This time he expects some form of recognition to dawn on the kid’s face because really, how long has it been since that night? The guards are still there (Law can confirm), so anyone who walks by the sole entrance to the Trafalgar estate would know that the family succumbed to illness as a mark of the gods’ anger, that everyone died over the span of nine years except for one child, who brought the bodies out and retrieves food from just within the gate’s reach. Law suspects rumours have run wilder since he has yet to die, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever have the opportunity to share the medical knowledge that saved him in the end.

It seems, however, that this intruder is entirely out of the loop.

“A _monster?_ ” gasps the boy and, to Law’s chagrin, he hops over the plants in the garden to run up to the manor wall. “There’s really a monster in here?”

“Um, yeah?”

“I want to see!”

Before Law can form coherent speech, the boy is clambering onto the ledge of the window below. Arms outstretched, he launches himself vertically, so high and so sudden that Law lurches backwards as hands appear in his vision. Law watches, stunned, as the boy pulls himself through the window with no clear visible effort.

Quiet suddenly, Law is no longer alone in his mansion.

“Uh,” says Law.

The boy beams at him, fists planted on his hips. From this close, Law can see the thin scar under his eye, and the freckles on his shoulders, and the curious gleam in his eyes as he tilts his head.

“Y’know I was thinking it before but what’s up with your skin?”

Law’s hand flinches halfway to his face and the patches of bleached skin that cover it and the rest of him. “Are you _serious?”_

“Yeah? It’s cool? Whatever, where’s this monster?” And he scampers off down the hall, flipflops slapping against the floor and stirring up dust in his wake.

Confused and annoyed, Law follows. The boy treats the mansion like his own personal stomping ground, shoving open doors (and breaking old hinges) at random and sighing in disappointment when no monster appears. He doesn’t comment about the state of disrepair, though with all the dust circulating in the air, both he and Law are reduced to sneezing messes more than once.

“Oh!” He’s found the library, bounding forward into the warm glow of the lamps. His erratic motion draws him dangerously close to Law’s set up, mortar and pestle still laid out with a drying paste of marshmallow and yarrow inside.

“Watch out,” snaps Law, lunging to grab the boy’s shoulder before he can slam into the desk. Upon feeling the heat of another person beneath his palm, Law snatches his hand back. “That’s important.”

The boy pinwheels his arms to regain his balance, nearly smacking Law in the nose, before righting himself. “What is it?”

“Some of the plants you’ve been wrecking,” mutters Law.

“Huh. This place is weird. Where’s the monster? It’s so… empty.”

Law watches the boy circle around the desk, wrinkle his nose at the plant material, and spin on his heel to appraise the collection of books that stretch from floor to ceiling. Suddenly he’s at the window, dragging the heavy curtains back. Afternoon light floods the library; Law draws back with something akin to a hiss.

“ _That’s_ better,” declares the boy. “So, weird guy, where’s the monster?”

Law sighs. “Don’t call me that. It’s Law. Trafalgar Law.”

He doesn’t expect any recognition, and this time his prediction is correct.

“Alright, Traf—Traflu—Traffy—”

“Law.”

“Trafalguy.”

“Law.”

“Trafluffy.”

“...Whatever.”

The boy beams. “Well I’m Luffy! Where’s the monster?”

“Right here,” says Law, finding no reason to hide it. “It’s me. I’m the monster.”

“No you’re not!” exclaims Luffy in disgust. “That’s—that’s _boring_.”

Law struggles not to groan. “It’s true. Haven’t you heard of the cursed duke? He was my father. Everyone fell ill and were quarantined within the estate.”

“I said that’s boring!”

“This—” Law jerks a finger at a splotch of white on his cheek, “—is a mark of the disease, a mark of the forsaken in the gods’ eyes.”

Luffy wrinkles his nose, obviously unimpressed and inducing a rise in Law’s blood pressure. “You got sick and some people said you’re cursed? That’s stupid. You really got my hopes up and everything.”

“I—” Law’s voice dies in his throat. _Stupid?_ The gods’ men essentially murdering his family in ignorance is _stupid?_ That Law isn’t the monster this fool had born out of his own wild assumptions is _boring?_ His nails dig crescent moons into his palms. “Get out.”

“Huh?”

“Just get _out of my house!”_ Law snarls, his voice a hoarse mess. For a moment, he thinks the boy is going to ignore him, as he’s done a fine job of up until now, but Law is surprised.

With a blank expression, Luffy dons his straw hat, turns around and leaves.

* * *

For three days straight it rains. Law pulls the heavy drapes shut to muffle the sound, but nothing can get rid of the humid pressure like a sodden blanket laying over the house. He finds himself muttering under his breath in irritation more than once. His desk is in as much disarray as his mind, unable to latch on to any singular thread of thought for long, so he spends much of his time cleaning his tools, sorting his books, losing his gaze in the lines of fuzzy grey between long-ignored novels.

On the fourth day, the sun gets to work ridding the city of all its puddles. Working out in the garden, Law feels the sodden blanket slide from his shoulders and the humidity work itself free from his chest. For a moment he even lets his eyes slip shut to face the sun.

“Yo, Traffy.”

Law opens his eyes to burning sun and bites out a curse as he quickly looks away. Blinking away the sunspots, he sees Luffy stepping over the dilapidated fence, utterly uninvited.

“Whatcha doing?” asks the intruder.

With a very loud and pointed sigh, Law waves a pair of shears at him. “What does it look like? I’m gardening.”

“Why?”

“So plants will grow.”

“Why?”

“The plants have medicinal properties. Depending on if i use the stalk or leaves, create an infusion or a paste, the chemicals naturally occurring in the plants will—” Law cuts himself off; Luffy is knuckle-deep in his own nose, no longer paying an ounce of attention. “...You’re a menace.”

“What were you saying?”

“Begone.”

Instead of leaving, Luffy drops into a crouch to peer intently at a turmeric flower, its petals peeling back like a pink pinecone. He gives its leaves a prod before shuffling over to investigate the bundles of chickweed. Law keeps a suspicious eye on him the entire time. He’s glad he does, because not a minute later Luffy’s nose is an inch from the sea of tiny blue and pink forget-me-nots steadily swallowing the grounds, and he lifts a hand towards a bloom of pink.

“Don’t touch those,” snaps Law, beside Luffy in an instant and smacking his hand away.

Luffy pouts up at him. “You don’t need that many!”

“Just—just don’t, alright? Not those ones.”

The pout doesn’t disappear from Luffy’s face until Law caves and points at the blue flowers. “Those are fine. Just not the pink. Got it?”

Luffy’s eyes light up. “Yeah, yeah, I got it!”

Casting one last suspicious look Luffy’s way, Law returns to his work. There are no further interruptions aside from the fool grabbing at a prickly stem, but thankfully Luffy leaves before Law is forced to fistfight him out of the garden. This time, Law doesn’t expect that to be the end of it.

* * *

A couple days later, Law is working as usual in the library when he hears a series of suspicious thuds. He doesn’t bother wasting energy worrying about it. When he goes to inspect the disturbance, following the sounds to the unused ballroom, he’s unsurprised to find Luffy hanging off the chandelier.

(Well, he might be _slightly_ perturbed, but since it’s Luffy…)

“Why are you even here?” Law asks bluntly.

Luffy dangles by his legs, beaming at Law from upside down. “I wanna be.”

“Great,” says Law as Luffy’s straw hat slips free. “Keep it down.”

He turns as Luffy’s flails to regain possession of his hat, and doesn’t flinch when the boy meets floor.

Law isn’t sure how much time has passed when Luffy seeks him out in the library whining about being hungry. Informing his uninvited guest that he doesn’t have enough food to share (hence, _rations_ , a concept Luffy doesn’t understand and apparently despises) results in a promise that Luffy will bring back food, or “Meat, tons of meat” specifically.

“Potatoes, too, while you’re at it,” says Law absently.

Later that evening, when the sun has already set, Luffy returns with a large bundle of meat already cooked and no potatoes. There’s a serious concern here that Luffy stole it, Law thinks, but the boy is beaming at him triumphantly, so the only thing he can do is clear a space in the kitchen so they can eat together—or rather, Luffy devours his meat and Law picks at his dwindling supply of potatoes.

Much to Law’s diminishing bafflement, Luffy becomes something of a staple in his life. His visits are erratic, sometimes early morning or late afternoon or in the middle of the night, and the length of his stays are just as random. If Law happens to be in the library (which admittedly he spends the majority of his time, whether awake or not) Luffy will march up to the heavy curtains and toss them aside with unnecessary zeal. And then he’ll go. Odd sounds will follow as Luffy explores the manor, but Law grows used to these as much as he does of the sunlight.

Sometimes Luffy will take a nap on the chaise lounge in front of the window, soaking in the sunlight with his hat over his face. Sometimes he’ll drape himself over Law who already occupies the chaise lounge. Sometimes he’ll drape himself over Law who is stooping over a spread of mashed leaves (and receive a irate lecture and a smack), but the thing that really bothers Law is that he _isn’t_ bothered.

It’s been years since he touched another human, even longer touching a healthy one, and Law is startled by the ease in which he accepts this contact moreso than the contact itself. Perhaps it has something to do with the casual disregard for personal space that Luffy applies to every situation. Law tries not to overthink it.

It’s been just over two weeks of these visits when Luffy bodily drags Law outside. The afternoon sun is as relentless as Luffy, but the towering oaks offer their protection. These excursions, too, integrate themselves naturally into Law’s life.

“You’ve got horses?” asks Luffy as they pass the abandoned stable.

“Not anymore.”

The empty coop. “Got any chickens?”

“Not anymore.”

Peering closely at Law. “Do you ever sleep?”

“When I can.”

Luffy gives him a weird look at that, but he doesn’t push it and Law is grateful. Trying to explain to a boy who can fall asleep anywhere he likes would just give Law a migraine.

Luffy asks a lot of questions but doesn’t listen to half the answers, and sometimes he’ll interrupt, like when Law is explaining why there’s a carriage overgrown with strangling vines in the back of the estate, only to shut up when Luffy falls out of a tree behind him.

“My hat fell off,” provides Luffy with a beaming smile as Law cleans and wraps his wounds. Law nearly asks why it’s that important, but Luffy looks so delighted by Law patching him up that the question slips his mind.

As they spend more time together, in the library and the kitchen, the garden or wandering the grounds, Law learns Luffy has two older brothers, a great many friends, and he’s proud of all of them. The scar under his eye has something to do with his hat and a man that he adores. The flowers he picks are always given away to someone, but he kept the blue forget-me-nots.

And he’s nineteen.

“You’re lying,” deadpans Law.

Luffy just laughs like he’s the funniest man in the world.

(Maybe he’s surprised because the only nineteen year old Law ever knew was himself, and that was the year the last body aside from his own left the estate.)

But the sun is bright and the library grows warmer by the day, and Luffy is enthralled by the tattoos that become visible with every new inch of skin Law bears. So, in the polite manner of equivalent exchange, Law offers pieces of himself in return.

Law extends a hand out to Luffy so he can get a closer look at the letters across his knuckles. He tells him how he’d done the inkwork himself within a couple days of his nineteenth birthday.

(There’s meaning there, plain as day in a word such as _DEATH_ , but that isn’t what Luffy is interested in.)

Explaining how the rest he’d done in sporadic fits of boredom, over weeks and months, Law shows him the symbols on his forearms, his biceps, and the curling heart that takes up most of his chest. Unlike the rest, Luffy doesn’t touch that one. Law shows him the volumes of medical knowledge he’s compiled from other books and his experiments, of things he’s learned and what he wants to learn should he one day be able to.

He tells him in passing that he had a younger sister, and that her favourite flowers were pink forget-me-nots.

Law is reading on the chaise lounge when Luffy, acting as a wiry-limbed blanket, stirs from his nap. There’s a sigh, and the sensation of a chin digging into Law’s belly. Slowly, Law peeks under his book to meet Luffy’s gaze.

“Traffy,” says Luffy, voice husky with sleep.

Law arches an eyebrow. “Luffy.”

A content smile melts across Luffy’s face; Law bops him with his book, eliciting a whine from his human blanket.

“You’re so weird, Traffy.”

“That hurts coming from you,” deadpans Law.

“I think you need to get outta here.”

That gives Law pause. He keeps the book open and aloft, just in case he needs to make a quick barrier between himself and Luffy’s piercing wide eyes.

“I don’t think so,” says Law after a beat.

“You do! Staying is doing weird things to your head.” Luffy pulls himself up until the book is tucked behind his head. His brows are pinched, dark eyes unwavering; Law keeps trying to look away but his gaze inevitably comes back to meet Luffy’s. “The festival is tonight.”

“Oh gods,” mutters Law at the mention of the festival, a commemoration of the birth of the new world full of singing, dancing, eating until coat buttons pop and drinking contests for the foolhardy.

“We’re going!”

“I _can’t_ , Luffy,” says Law with a pointed gesture at his face. “Monster, remember?”

Luffy rolls his eyes. “Wear a mask, silly.”

Law opens his mouth to reject the idea again, but closes it. Oh yeah, the festival _is_ a masquerade, isn’t it? He hasn’t gone since he was a child, but sometimes he can hear the festivities and see the glow over the wall.

Unfortunately for Law, Luffy sees the moment he caves and he’s on his feet in an instant, dragging the other man up with him. He doesn’t let go of Law until they’re in one of the storage rooms. Without hesitation, Luffy locates a box and pulls it off the shelf—one of many treasures he’s undoubtedly unearthed in his exploring.

Inside are several vaguely familiar masks. One is a hideous concoction of sparkly things and dyed feathers. Luffy holds this one up to Law’s face, beaming even as Law swats it away. The half-masks won’t do, but at the bottom of the box are two full face creations. The one with the massive plume bent by storage is a no-go, but the other is plain and perfect, a dark blue with gold trim. Hopefully it won’t draw any attention to him.

Luffy drags Law next to his parents’ room; everything is exactly how he remembers it but for the smears of activity that mean, at some point, Luffy explored here (clearly he figured out that Law doesn’t use any of the bedrooms, and that he’d never moved the clothes that fit him into what was once his own closet). Oddly efficient, Luffy finds a bunch of shirts that will cover the most skin, with high collars and buttoned cuffs. Law sheds his work shirt and tosses it to the side as he steps in front of the floor-length mirror to don one of his father’s.

Law catches Luffy’s staring through the reflection and arches an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

Blinking, Luffy flops backwards onto the bed in a plume of dust and says to the canopy, “Nuthin’.” A pause. “I like your tattoos.”

“Oh,” says Law, who is very aware of this since one of Luffy’s favourite things to do is touch his inked knuckles. “Thanks.”

For whatever reason, he feels embarrassed. Instead of dwelling on it, Law buttons up the shirt and tugs at the cuffs. With the addition of a pair of gloves, Law puts on his chosen mask and turns this way and that, making sure no obvious discolouration is visible.

“This is a terrible idea,” Law feels the need to point out.

Luffy just laughs.

* * *

For the first time since they met, Law witnesses Luffy escape the estate. It’s definitely bizarre, watching a lanky, red-vested, sparkly-plumed somebody launch himself from a tree to the wall and maintain his balance. Law follows his example with more restraint. Getting down the other side proves to be more of an adventure, during which Law is thankful for his gloves and what muscle garden work has given him.

The moment Law’s feet hit the ground, he expects some monumental feeling to hit him—fear, perhaps, or guilt—but Luffy is a force to be reckoned with. His grip on Law’s wrist, pulling him forward from the darkness of the wall, is strong and reassuring. There’s no time to dwell on the feeling in his stomach.

They’re nowhere near the main square when they hit the outskirts of the celebrations. Luffy leads Law down the path created by paper lanterns, criss-crossing over their heads in a soft glow of multicoloured light. Law can’t stop thinking how close they are—as a child he remembers them as high up as the clouds.

“Everyone’s finally gonna meet you,” chirps Luffy as he skips along.

It takes Law several embarrassingly long seconds to process that. “...Everyone?”

“Everyone!”

“Luffy, _who_ , exactly, is everyone?”

Unfortunately for Law, Luffy is full of questions, half an attention span, and zero answers. Law learns for himself that everyone means _everyone_.

 _(Luffy has a lot of friends and is proud of all of them_ —Law should have seen it coming.)

The closer they get to the main square, the more people they see, the more stalls and vendors and lanterns, and the more names thrown in Law’s face by Luffy and more politely by those such named. The tendrils of anxiety creeping up his spine at the thought of meeting people evaporates with every person that smiles with exasperated fondness at Luffy and understanding at Law.

“I can’t see his face but I _know_ you’re overwhelming him, Luffy,” says Usopp, a maskless man leaning against his stall, dark skin stained darker by oil and ink and dye.

Luffy scoffs. “Whatever! Did you finish that blasty thing?”

“I did, but—”

“Lemme see!”

Law is intrigued by what appears to be a set of puppet strings without a puppet. He gives it a poke and the strings curl inwards like a shy plant. It seems incredibly pointless, but Law sort of wants it anyway. He’s studying the unnecessarily complicated mechanism that works it when there’s a sharp crack and the smell of smoke. Law flinches back from Luffy and his friend, who cradle a box with a flaming monkey toy in it. The feathers adorning Luffy’s mask have been singed right off.

“Hm, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” says Usopp, smudged with soot.

“Doesn’t seem like a very effective assassination technique,” murmurs Law, reaching over to shove the burning monkey back into the box. “Though I could find a use for it.”

Usopp looks from Law to Luffy with a strained expression as the latter bursts out laughing.

They leave the booth with a handful of tiny dancing toys that Law is pretty certain Usopp gave them just to get them to leave faster. By the time they reach the square, there’s new feathers for Luffy’s mask and a fluffy scarf around Luffy’s neck, a bunch of cheap beaded necklaces around Law’s, and plentiful gifts of festival foods, all obtained without a single coin being exchanged.

“How do you know all these people?” Law tries to ask after Luffy shrieks a greeting to a redhead dressed like a dancer and wearing half a cat mask.

“What are you talking about?” Luffy laughs. “They’re my friends!”

“But _how?_ ”

Luffy doesn’t hear him as they approach a booth with a particularly long line up that Luffy ignores to skip ahead. A tall blond man flips shish kebabs on a grill, but no matter how fast he trades food for money, the line doesn’t get any shorter.

“Sanji!” cries Luffy.

“Luffy! Wait a moment—”

“Food!”

“I said _wait_ —”

“ _Sanji!”_

A handful of kebabs are thrust into Luffy’s hands. Law isn’t surprised at the speed in which Luffy begins to devour them, despite having stuffed his face their entire journey to the square.

“Your friend want anything?” asks Sanji, flinging coins into a bucket as another set of kebabs meet the grill.

“I’m not sharing!”

“I didn’t say you had to, little freak.” Ten seconds later, Sanji passes a skewer to Law. “You look like you can use the meat.”

“...Thanks,” says Law, overtly aware of the stares being fixated on them from the ever growing line up.

“You’re Traffy, then?”

Law’s free hand flinches to his mask and the blond snorts.

“Good luck,” he says before giving his full attention back to his customers.

It’s a clear dismissal, and Law takes it upon himself to drag Luffy away this time before he starts demanding more free food. The smell from the kebab is too much to pass up, so Law risks sneaking a piece under his mask to taste. The rest soon follows.

They meet another of Luffy’s friends at a drinking competition, where it is evidently no surprise that he obliterates the competition (twice, when someone accuses him of watering down his booze and takes a swing at him). Law sees the redhead return to pickpocket all the losers. Another friend is part of the band on the other side of the fountain, tall and spindly with a violin tucked under his chin. Upon seeing Luffy, he beams beneath his skeletal mask and introduces a new jig.

“Let’s dance!” declares Luffy.

(Law doesn’t dance.)

People are spinning and twirling and kicking their legs up en masse. It’s pure chaos, and terrible, but Luffy is leading Law around amidst it with no purpose but to be the most chaotic of the bunch.

(Law has never existed around so many people.)

The air behind his mask is heavy and reassuring; the collar of his shirt is high and itchy and safe; his gloves are sticky from food, his own and remnant’s of Luffy’s, and his palms are hot and sweaty.

(Law has never been more aware of the barriers between himself and everyone else.)

The music changes twice before Law finds himself sitting with the cat dancer and the heavy drinker. They seem more than happy to share the draft left behind by those passed out beneath the table. Law is reminded their names are Nami and Zoro, but no matter how many times he says _Law_ , they say _Traffy_. His mask is a hindrance to his drinking so he trades with Nami.

Another song starts up, fast and cheerful, and Nami pulls Law back into the dancing crowd. She’s a terrible lead; Zoro is even worse. Law feels relieved he’s not the only one who dances by dodging everyone else. The toy-selling Usopp creates a space in the dancers by a masterful jig across from Nami, and they’re challenged by tall woman in a colourful bird mask and a pink-haired man that Law thinks might guard his gate.

It’s between songs that Law realizes he hasn’t heard Luffy’s laugh in quite some time. Law has no idea where to look, but he gets another free shish kebab from Sanji so he counts that as a good start. He squeezes through drunk dancers and giddy children to find more space in which to breathe, all the while the alcohol turning into something hot and fast in his blood, like a constant source of energy despite the world turning liquid around him.

It’s during his hunt for more air that Law eventually finds Luffy. The lanterns extend here too, just another footpath ignored by the masses for its lack of food and fun. At first, Law suspects the figures might be using the solitude to expel an overindulgence of booze and meat skewers, until his brain registers the child on the ground, the crying, and the straw hat like a shield between him and the two men cursing as they stumble away.

Luffy props his fists on his hips as he turns to grin at the kid. “Your fighting style is pretty kickass!”

“But I lost,” mumbles the boy, punctuated by a wet sniff. Even in the dim glow of the lanterns, Law can see the scrapes and bruises littering his skin, and the beginnings of a black eye.

“Nah,” says Luffy, reaching into his pocket, “you haven’t lost till you give up! Here, meat’s the best after a fight.”

The boy startles as he catches the meat roll tossed his way. He blinks at the gift, then Luffy, before frowning in determination and standing up. After a quick bow and a stammered thank you, the boy spins around and runs back into the throng past Law.

“Oh, Traffy! Nice mask.”

Law doesn’t reply as he approaches, eyes already zeroing in on the damage decorating Luffy’s knuckles. He reaches for Luffy’s hands to better inspect them—wishing he’d at least brought a basic medical kit with him—all the while Luffy stands surprisingly still, head tilted with a small smile that Law finds far more distracting than the state of his knuckles.

“Do you get into fights often?” asks Law.

“Yeah,” admits Luffy easily, “but I have friends who fix me up good.”

“You’re lucky,” mutters Law as he slides off one glove to put over Luffy’s hand. It’s a terrible attempt at first aid, and likely to fall off, but the longer it stays covered the less Law has to worry about half the festival ending up in Luffy’s wounds.

“I really am,” says Luffy quietly.

His bare fingers thread through Law’s, newly exposed and revelling in the fresh air. Somehow, Law’s palm feels even hotter than it did before.

Then he blinks and Luffy is pulling him into the crowd of dancers spilling out from the main square.

* * *

Law wakes up to an unfamiliar ceiling. Baffled, he turns his head to blink at the sunlight starting to filter through the window. He begins to lift a hand to rub at his eyes but startles when something falls from his palm. Propping himself up on his elbows, Law realizes first that he’s on a long settee, and second that the thing that fell from his hand was someone else’s, now lying limp against the cushion. Law follows the hand to the arm in which it is attached, to Luffy, stretched out along the back of the settee.

Slowly, Law looks around the rest of the room—Usopp on the floor in a nest of threadbare blankets, and Zoro snoring nearby with absolutely nothing—until his gaze lands on the cat mask perched on a low table.

Law slaps a hand to his face—nothing. He’s out the door before anyone else wakes up.

It takes him a minute of brisk walking before Law remembers he forgot his mask and, when he whips around to return, that he’s lost. Standing frozen in a narrow alley with no mask and one glove, Law recalls the anxiety he’d forgotten the night before. He pulls his shirt collar up higher, but there’s no hiding his face without a hood or mask. He’s so distracted trying to figure out a way of pulling his shirt over his face (and become suspicious public enemy number one) that he isn’t able to dodge the body that comes whipping around the corner.

“Oh gods’ shit, I’m sorry!”

“Way to go, Shachi.”

“Quiet, you, I didn’t see him—”

As the two strangers bicker, Law picks himself up off the ground. Fear is colder than the morning air on his skin, but he can’t force his legs to turn and move like he wants them to.

“Um, are you alright?”

Law’s hand moves of its own accord, spasming to his face as though it might be able to hide splotchy skin with more of it. One of the men, head half obscured by a weird hat, pulls back with a twist of his mouth—but it isn’t fear or disgust that Law sees. A moment longer and Law recognizes embarrassment.

“Not that—I didn’t mean—uh—” stammers the man until his friend elbows him in the ribs.

“We’re sorry,” says the one that ran into Law first.

“I just thought you look kind of…” says the other.

“High strung?”

“Yeah.”

Law stares at the two of them, a hand still plastered to his face, before asking, “Where are you from?”

“...The southern coast?”

“Oh.” The hand slides off Law’s face. Of course people only visiting the city, especially after so much time has passed, wouldn’t know.

They ask for directions to the main square, but the best Law can do is tell them to follow the trash and lanterns. They thank him anyway, and for a moment, Law feels almost normal, just another citizen on an early morning walk with every right to smell freshly baked bread and listen to the groans of hungover dancers.

But he doesn’t have that right, and Law follows his own advice in reverse and avoids lanterns until he finds the wall once again.

* * *

“So?” prompts Luffy some hours later as he hops over the garden fence. “Didja have fun?”

Law sticks his trowel in the dirt and leans back, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. “I did,” he admits, because there’s really no point in lying when Luffy saw him the whole night, “but I got caught.”

“And?”

With a sigh, Law tips his head back to squint at Luffy, haloed by the sun and impossible to look at directly; Law blinks instead at his dirty hands.

“What’s the big deal?” continues Luffy before Law can admonish him. “S’not like anybody’s coming to arrest you, right?”

“I don’t know what they’d do,” mumbles Law. “Stop sending me food rations, maybe.”

“Then I’d beat them up and bring you something myself!”

“You really are incredible,” says Law flatly, though oddly touched. No matter how Law would enjoy seeing the gods’ men and salt water spraying guards smacked into the next town over, that would mean Luffy getting into trouble with powerful people no amount of brute force would work against. It seems as though Law will have to be more adamant about staying within the estate, just to give Luffy fewer reasons to stir the pot.

Law shifts on his feet to address the browning leaves of his marshmallow. He doesn’t even realize he’s squinting against the sun as he does so until a shadow passes over his head, followed by a weight. Startled, Law reaches up to feel rough straw woven flat—the brim of Luffy’s hat.

At a loss, Law can only mumble his thanks before Luffy is running off to do whatever it is he does while Law works, which he is glad for. The flush creeping up his neck is promising to be a dark one, and his stomach is doing the same swooping thing it did the previous night.

(If he looks too deeply into it, he might realize that particular feeling isn’t a new one.)

Later, when Law returns the straw hat, it’s with the addition of several pink forget-me-nots tucked under the ribbon.

* * *

Something changes in the manor over the next week. Law doesn’t think it’s the tangible thing, but he feels it in the air and sees it in the shadows. He gardens as usual, gathers his weekly rations as usual, works in the library as usual, but there’s a weight there where once there was not.

He doesn’t want to entertain the idea that the weight has always existed, that only now is he noticing it, but on the seventh day he can’t ignore it any longer.

Luffy is dozing off on the chaise, an arm stretched towards the window like he might draw the evening sun in closer. Surrounded by his mashed up plants and theories and dust, Law is tired. He pushes away from the table and crosses the room to look down at Luffy. His straw hat sits on his chest, a dry and crumbling flower still tucked through its ribbon that draws a smile out of Law.

Surprisingly, Luffy is squishy in all the right places to make for a fantastic pillow. That alone makes it easy to dispel any lingering awkwardness as Law gets comfortable, wondering how Luffy does it so easily when Law has never thought about it before.

He doesn’t realize he’s been dreaming in the confusing haze between sleep and wakefulness until he feels feathers against his face. It takes him a second longer to recognize the feathers as fingertips. Law sighs, content, and his pillow laughs as soft as his touch against Law’s cheek.

Beneath him, Law feels the vibrations of a voice. “Hey Traffy? Everyone wants to see you again.”

“Mmno.”

“Why not?”

“No mask,” sighs Law.

“You don’t need one.”

“Do.”

The fingertips brush over the shell of Law’s ear and sink into his hair. He kind of feels like he’s melting.

“They’ve already seen you, Traffy. You don’t have to be afraid of them.”

“M’not.”

“...You’re not?”

With a sigh, Law opens his eyes and lifts his head to look at Luffy, just as he did to Law so many times before. For once, Luffy looks uncertain. Law cracks a grin.

“I suspect you’d beat them up if they gave me a reason to fear them,” says Law with a quirk of an eyebrow, “but I’m more certain they wouldn’t do anything to hurt you on purpose.”

Luffy’s gaze is sharp enough to cut through Law’s lingering haze. His face seems red, maybe from laying in the sun for too long.

“So you know,” begins Luffy, a hand frozen in Law’s hair, “that to me, you’re—”

He stops suddenly, attention flitting to the door. Law, in the middle of wondering if he’d just said something embarrassing, doesn’t immediately process the sound of the heavy front doors creaking on unoiled hinges. He does, however, hear the footsteps.

“Oh, that’ll be them,” says Luffy.

Law’s voice cracks. “Pardon?”

“I invited everyone here!”

“ _Luffy._ ”

“ _Oooi!”_ shouts someone Law’s fairly certain is Usopp. “We’re here!”

Luffy beams at Law, who flings himself from the chaise so fast and so sudden that Luffy tumbles off after him.

“Oh gods,” says Law, teetering on stiff limbs. “I can’t believe—no, I can. Luffy, I’m going to wring your neck—”

“Later,” chirps Luffy as he springs to his feet, so nimble and swift that Law has no chance of grabbing him as he runs out of the library. “Sanjiii! Did you bring meat?”

Stiffly, Law walks to the library doors and hesitantly looks beyond them. People are milling about the foyer—people are _inside the manor_.

People are looking up at him with varying expressions, with grins and curiosity, but none of which are negative. They’re greeting him, Law realizes, and they’re amused that he’s staring, very obviously in shock, because of course they’d know Luffy invited them on a whim, and of course they would come anyway.

“Where’s your kitchen?” asks Sanji, dragging an entire cart full of ingredients.

Law inches towards the top of the stairs and points stiffly. “Far right, straight to the end of the hall.”

“You’ve got a dining room, right?” asks Usopp once Sanji is gone. “It’s probably disgusting.”

“Then we’d better clean it up a bit,” sighs Nami.

Law directs them to that too, and Zoro to the wine cellar. He walks down the stairs as more people enter the manor, all grimacing at the derelict sound of the door hinges but looking delighted when Luffy appears after having been booted from the kitchen. Law meets Brook, Vivi, Robin and Franky, and Coby who he’s still pretty sure is a templar guard, and Chopper, a literal child whose eyes sparkle when Law agrees to show him the garden.

Even outside, with fresh air in his lungs and the familiar scent of all his medicinal plants around him, Law is painfully aware of the people now wandering the estate. He can hear them running about upstairs, Luffy’s laugh and Usopp’s startled shriek, and the sizzle of Sanji’s cooking beneath his and Zoro’s arguing, and Nami as she appears in a window, beating out a tablecloth.

When the violin starts, there’s heat behind Law’s eyes.

“This is amazing,” says Chopper with a voice full of awe. “Luffy says you study them?”

Law swallows back the sensation growing at the back of his throat before replying, “Yes. I’ve been studying how to maximize efficiency and increase concentration with different infusion methods.”

“That sounds _amazing_ ,” sighs the boy. “How do you go about testing them?”

“Some I can test on myself.” He doesn’t explain the people of the household becoming test subjects because there was no medicine in the rations given to them; because in the end only Law could ease their suffering. ”Many are simply theories.”

Chopper frowns. “So then how are you going to test those you can’t test on yourself?”

“I can’t,” says Law bluntly.

“You could,” comes a voice from above. Law and Chopper look up at Luffy leaning out of the second floor window, face curiously blank. “If you left.”

Law turns away with a shake of his head. “I can’t do that.”

“I thought you already did?” says Chopper uncertainly.

“That’s different.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” mutters Luffy.

Plucking a mint leaf free, Law crushes it between his fingers and inhales its fragrance. Out of his periphery, Law sees Chopper looking between him and Luffy, rubbing his knuckles together nervously. It’s incredible that nobody has straight out asked about Law’s situation, but that doesn’t mean he’s about to volunteer the information. Luckily the conversation isn’t given an opportunity to continue as Sanji calls them together for dinner.

The dining room is as close to spotless as Law remembers ever seeing it. The air itself is different from the other rooms, doubly so when Sanji brings in food on platters that Law didn’t even know he had. Everyone claims a seat at random until the table is full; a couple other chairs are brought in from another room. Law sits at the end, which turns out to be a mistake, because it means he can see down the entire table and everyone occupying it: Usopp and Luffy fighting for first dibs on the meat, Sanji wielding a serving spoon at them, Zoro arriving late with more alcohol Law can’t be certain is overly fermented or not, and everyone else serving themselves and passing dishes around like they’ve done this so many times before—and they probably have, except for Law, who remembers social dinners involving spoon feeding the sick.

For the second time that day, Law feels the pressing urge to cry. Instead, he smothers the feeling with food.

* * *

The table has been cleared, the dishes cleaned and put away, and the sun has set well past the horizon when the company leaves.

Coby suggests they avoid the front gate, which gives Luffy an excuse to show them his shortcut (and Law a moment of disbelief that they’d actually all strolled in through the front). Usopp and Chopper are especially delighted by the prospect, cheering their way out of the kitchen door and into the night.

“If I twist my ankle doing this, I’m suing you for damages,” Nami informs Luffy as she links arms with Vivi and follows Robin outside.

“I could just build a hidden gate for later,” suggests Franky.

Brook chortles at the prospect of a secret entrance and plucks a diddy on his violin. Zoro exits with an armful of booze Law assured him he didn’t need nor want, while Sanji carefully squeezes his cart through the back door. Coby is last, thanking Law for his hospitality with a small smile he doesn’t know how to interpret.

Law wonders, when everyone is gone, the estate is quiet, and he remains safely confined within dusty brick walls, what sort of life he might have led had things been different. What kind of friends would he have made? What kind of adventures would he have gone on? Most importantly, would he have met Luffy?

On the end of the seventh day, Law is alone, and he hates it.

* * *

The morning is cool and dewy; Law hates it on principle.

What he hates more is that despite the dozen different bird songs and leaves rustled by the breeze, Law is surrounded by silence. He walks down the halls listlessly, trailing his finger through the dust and noticing how much less there is gathered there. There are footprints everywhere he doesn’t recognize but can guess. The kitchen has been reorganized. Law stops at a window on the second floor, a wraith in his own home.

Then he looks down into the garden, at the red vest and straw hat, and curses the relief that makes him feel human.

He opens the window, bracing his palms against the sill as he leans out. “Luffy.”

For a moment, Law isn’t sure whether he heard him or not. Luffy remains sitting, cross-legged amidst flowers whose names he couldn’t bother memorizing, his back to the house. Then the breeze ruffles his hat and he looks up.

“I’m taking you out of here.”

He says it with such conviction—as if there’s no other possibility—that for the first time since Luffy dropped into his life, Law is afraid of him. This is Luffy at his most obstinate, an unstoppable force.

“No you’re not,” says Law.

“I am.” Luffy stands to face the window, feet planted and sturdy as though staring down a beast instead of just Law.

Unfortunately for Law, he isn’t the immovable object he tries to be.

“You can’t take me out of here—it’s dangerous,” Law tries to explain to this agent of chaos attempting to rip his life apart, but Luffy never knew how to compromise.

( _That’s not entirely true_ , Law thinks, _he knows when it’s important, to protect small flowers and smaller children with bruised faces, but now—_ why now—)

“Nobody thinks you’re a monster,” snaps Luffy. “There’s no reason for you to stay in here!”

“Everyone else—”

“ _Who cares?_ ” Luffy throws the words at Law, tattoos them on his knuckles underneath _DEATH_ and burns them between his ink heart and the one beating fiercely beneath it.

( _Why not now?_ )

The manor will continue to stand there, a giant grave marker. The people of the city will live on in joy and grief, experiencing everything fully, all while Law stays trapped in his tower because he fears nobody will believe the miracles of flowers over gods’ men. He’ll miss the festivals and the riots, the busy mornings at the bakery and the sloppy evenings at the pub. His dream will never be realized. He won’t be able to help anybody.

Law curls his fingers into fists that shake against the grit coating the windowsill. “Promise me.”

Luffy doesn’t ask; he takes the straw hat from his head and points it at Law, his dark hand scarred and stark against golden straw—an oath upon an oath Law knows nothing about except that Luffy has lived for it.

“I won’t leave you.”

( _The sky is blue, grass is green, not all scars are painful, and Luffy will never leave him.)_

“Wait there.”

Law bursts into the room at the end of the hall, dotted with hand and footprints from their masquerade dress-up. Beneath the four poster bed is what Law came for: his mother’s equipment bag. Inside are travel-sized vials and plates, surgery kit, bandages of every size and thread count, and even a small mortar and pestle. From the closet he retrieves his father’s long coat and lays it over his arm. The fabric is somehow untouched by the years, but through adult eyes it seems smaller than he remembers.

The library is next. Law drops his mother’s bag and his father’s coat on the chaise lounge currently soaking in the sunlight, turns to his desk and grabs for graphite, a pen and extra ink, extra nibs, extra paper for the latest volume of his research—

The sun is hot and glowing golden on Luffy’s hat as he bounds across the room.

“I didn’t feel like waiting.”

Law drops everything back onto the table and reaches to fist a hand in Luffy’s red vest. Before him, Law assumed he was lonely but he didn’t _know_. If there is one thing upon which he can be immovable, it would be the gratitude and adoration Law feels now, that he tries to channel through the crush of his lips against Luffy’s smile.

Wiry arms fling themselves around Law’s neck as he releases the vest to hold Luffy to him. He can’t be sure but if the giggle is anything to go by, he might have just swept Luffy’s feet from the floor.

“Sorry,” Law murmurs into the gap between their lips, “I—”

Luffy reaches up on tiptoes to interrupt him with a kiss, followed by another to his cheek, to the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth—he peppers Law with little pieces of love until Law feels as soft as dandelion fluff.

“Let’s go,” says Luffy.

The manor is still mostly dusty. He doesn’t know how long he’ll be gone for, how far he’ll journey from this place, or if he’ll ever be back. The garden will grow unchecked, the forget-me-nots will spread, and the kitchen door will probably be stuck shut by ivy, and Law doesn’t mind so much leaving it behind.

Ahead of them, the gate is open and inviting, and Law doesn’t ask how Luffy did it but he thinks he recognizes Coby beneath a metal helm. There’s no crowd with pitchforks and torches waiting. The gods don’t smite him on the spot for defying their will.

In one hand Law carries a half-written journal and a travelling kit of tools; in the other is Luffy’s, pulling him through the gate. Beyond is a city, and people he thinks he doesn’t mind trusting, from the pink-haired templar grinning at him to the child who shares his passion for medicine, but beyond that—

He’ll have to find out.

* * *

* * *

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [twit](http://twitter.com/bitterbeetle)   
>  [tumb](http://bitterbeetle.tumblr.com)


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